The present paper proposes a method for producing the XYZ images of objects observed under arbitrary illumination on a display device. A realistic appearance of object surfaces is realized on the display directly without any color conversion. First, we describe the system construction with a programmable light source, a high speed monochrome camera, a display device, and two personal computers. The illuminant spectra are produced in a linear combination of narrow-band basis spectra. Next, we describe the principle of tristimulus image display. The theoretical equations of the active illuminant are derived for producing the tristimulus values of object surfaces observed under a target light source. The ideal illuminant spectra, however, have negative portions that are not physically realizable. Then, we design the practical illuminant spectra that make compensation for the negative portions. The feasibility of the proposed active illumination method is confirmed in experiments of color image rendering for real color patches.